Facebook

The holiday season is an excellent time to share deals and promote products to your customers. A Facebook store can directly benefit your marketing efforts by capturing the revenues that are provided by promoting special offers. We believe you can utilize your Facebook page to drive sales to your Facebook store; the key is knowing how to use your Facebook page to drive sales. There are a few tips you can use to help make this process simpler.

Schedule posts. You can easily schedule posts out for a specific day and time that you want to share a product or post a promotional offer. This is especially helpful during major holiday shopping days such as Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday. The ability to be able to schedule in advance helps you develop your message and you won’t have to worry about forgetting to post your offers. To schedule those out you click on the clock icon that is highlighted below.

Use product images when posting. We have said it before and we will say it again, photos are of utmost importance when marketing your products. Use your marketing posts to create attention grabbing images that are related to what your customers are looking for. Using unique images will help get your store noticed and encourage customers to share those images and deals.

Announce restock on a popular item. If you have a product that is flying out of the store let customers know when you are restocking that item. This is a very simple post that can generate a lot of buzz for your store and can create cross selling opportunities. These types of posts work very well inside of the news feed for mobile Facebook users since they can click to buy with one button.

Promote special offers. You can promote limited time offers on certain products, similar to restock items noted above, which can create cross-selling opportunities in your store. Using a daily deal app can enable you to quickly create these limited time offers and can add deal oriented revenues during important promotion periods.

Offer free shipping. Offer this on all products or make it based upon a certain purchase price amount (ex: purchases over $50.00) for a selection period of time.

These few quick tips will make a world of difference in the ability to drive sales in your Facebook store. Promotions directly on your Facebook page are a great way to increase revenue and to create brand awareness. Recent research indicates that using your social networks correlates directly with increased sales and customer awareness for your brand. Don’t miss out!

Your job as a merchant and a marketer is to create a unique and engaging experience on all of your social media sites, you’re probably sitting there asking what does that mean? A unique experience is one that will “stick” with your customers, it’s memorable and out of the ordinary for them. In return, they won’t forget the experience and will create a lifetime advocate promoting your company and products to their friends and followers.

If you have an existing website then your social sites may be the place to let your hair down, relax, and be yourself. Your goal in social networks is all about the two-way communication and engagement. It’s your chance to let your personality come through. You don’t sell to your friends do you? Most of the time no! You listen to them and communicate with them. They tell you their funny stories and vise versa. So why would you want to sell to your “Friends/Fans” on Facebook? They don’t want to be sold to, they want a social experience. Sure you can remind them from time to time that you are selling on Facebook as well but the more you interact with them the better chance you will have at turning them into real fans. I’m reminded of a friend’s recent casual discussion while playing golf with a business associate that led to a purchase of a piece of real estate. The intent of the game was social and fun. However, the discussion provided context for an opportunity that he wasn’t aware of but was highly interested in. The context for the purchase was driven by a conversation, interesting product and a relationship that already validated their commitment through their purchase.

So how do you create a unique experience? Do you have an interesting hobby or job, if so share it. Are you funny? Yes, then create a daily joke that’s tasteful and appropriate for all audiences. Into fashion or food then share your passion. Have cute animals? Share your pictures and stories, everyone loves adorable animal pictures. These personal things make you relatable to your audience; they are now communicating with a human, not a computer.

Now that you have their attention you want to integrate your products into the mix to remind your audience that you have a social shop, key word is “social.” If you started to engage your fans by introducing pictures of cute, furry animals then use that to your advantage with your products. For example, if you sell jeans then post pictures of dogs wearing your jeans or just wearing jeans with a caption that says “Think these look good on him, imagine what they could do for you! Shop today in our Facebook store by clicking on your Shop app icon.” You have now successfully been engaging, sociable, and a marketer all at one time. Get creative this is the fun part figuring out how to share your products with your personality thrown in.

You are now creating a unique experience that customers will remember. Many times your products aren’t highly unique so you have to stand out from the crowd. If people associate you with the dog jean pictures then you have successfully stuck with them. And they are more likely to share it with their friends who share those interests. It’s time to build on the experience, branch out and post things that are relatable to your unique content. Start to build your niche.

Once you have built your experience make sure you maintain it, you don’t want to drop off the face of the earth. All your efforts will have been wasted. Stay consistent and reliable your fans will reward you for it. Do you have a favorite brand you like to follow because they’re out of the ordinary? If so let us know in the comments below.

Not sure your Facebook store is making the impact you hoped it would? The early sales numbers aren’t as impressive as you thought they would be? Does that mean you should abandon the shop, of course not! In fact that Facebook shop may be dramatically improving your social signals.

The masterminds over at Google and Microsoft (Bing & .Yahoo’s search engine) have been working diligently to fine tune their process of figuring out just who online really matters. Of course, everyone matters but in the digital space it’s important to determine who users care about. They have determined that they need to integrate social conversations into the mix because they show engagement and potentially who users care about – this is a perfect opportunity for your store to demonstrate value from both direct sales AND social conversation to your overall online efforts.

According to Danny Sullivan, lead writer with Search Engine Land, Google and Bing are using Twitter and Facebook posts to improve a sites “social signal,” which in turn helps to improve the page rank for that company, product or service. Even if you aren’t seeing the type of traffic you want right now to your store those posts, shares, and tweets that are occurring are helping your social signal, in turn letting Google and Bing know that you have “Social Authority.” This will mean improved page rank, which is a key factor for online traffic. We all know that in the SEO world that authority matters. Authority carries more weight and sends a signal to Google and Bing that says, “Hey this is something you should pay attention to.” You don’t want to be left out of an important conversation at school, at a party or now when it comes to search!

This doesn’t mean you want to flood your Facebook feed and Twitter feed with posts every thirty minutes. Google and Bing are smart so they notice when someone is reposting content for the sake of posting content. Also you don’t want to lose followers just to improve your social signal. Your followers are influential to your signal as well. When someone finds your content intriguing and decides to tweet about it, then someone else re-tweets, and so forth this generates link building back to you. Your store is a simple way to provide ways for your fans and friends to post about your products.

If you start to question whether or not you should keep your Facebook store or not, think about the effect it just might be having on your social signal.

ShopTab has released a new feature to help you sell in your Facebook shop. All ShopTab clients can implement a “Featured Item” which displays the first product on your store page in a stand-alone box with a banner that states “Featured Item.” This is a great way to draw attention to specific products on your first page.

– Create a daily or weekly deal with the featured item: You can pick a new item to be featured daily with a coupon code or free shipping offered on the item.

– Create a special discount if the item is liked so many times or by the first 25 users. Turn the featured item into a game. In the text let the customers know that the first fans to like the product will get 20% off sent to them via a private message in Facebook.

Selling in Facebook should leverage every opportunity to enhance the merchandising and promotion of your products. The “Featured Item” feature is a great example of both by creating more prominence for your first listing and the opportunity for everyone to see it on the first page of your store.

For more information on how to implement your “Featured Item” view the slideshow presentation below.

[slideshare id=12762237&doc=featureditem-120501144152-phpapp02]

Want to learn more tactics to help increase sells in your Facebook store? Check out our social commerce strategy “Return on Facebook” for more details.

What can you do to supercharge your marketing opportunities and revenues after you’ve optimized the power of your Amazon Webstore? How about taking your products or services to a social platform to engage a new audience and reach new customers? There is a compelling solution, create a Facebook store! ShopTab, a leader in global social commerce, has released Amazon Webstore integration that allows you to take products from your website and place them in a customized Facebook shop in a few simple steps.

Let’s explore the value of adding social commerce to your existing e-commerce efforts. Facebook, or any social network, allows merchants to have a different conversation with your audience that not only engages them but allows them to become your best advocates. Using Facebook as a social selling platform opens up a new avenue to create a personality behind your brand and the potential to present your products to over 950 million Facebook users. Retailers continually invest to stay in front of their existing clients and broaden their reach to new clients – social networks like Facebook are a new tool to add to your mix of weapons to achieve your goals.

When you provide clients and prospects the opportunity to socially interact with your products using “likes,” “shares,” “tweets,” and “pins” the conversation is amplified to their friends and friends of their friends. It is important to note this delivery can’t mimic your e-commerce solution; social users are looking for a unique shopping experience, one that brings them closer to their friends or people with similar interests. According to Social Commerce Today users are engaging in “social intelligence” which involves six elements:

1) Social Proof – My friends have that so I need that.

2) Reciprocity – Well they gave me a free product so I will buy something from them.

3) Authority – My favorite actor/actress has that so I need that.

4) Consistency – This product has lasted forever or it’s my favorite so I will buy from them again.

5) Liking – I really love my best friends taste so I want what she has.

6) Scarcity – None of my friends have this product yet I need to be the first.

The opportunity for social commerce to deliver revenues is highly compelling if you can appeal to these social intelligence drivers. Download our free Social Commerce Strategy if you need a kick start to your efforts. To get started with your current Webstore infrastructure, all you need to do is follow a few steps that are outlined in the slideshow below and your shop will be up and running.

Who likes checklist? Well at ShopTab we love checklists so we have created a short list to help you with your Timeline conversion. We have also created a slideshow to help you visually navigate the new features.

Although we know penguins cannot fly, that has certainly not stopped the publishing company from reaching out to engage socially with its fan base. Penguin Books has stood as a literary monument for many years allowing readers access anything from the classics to the latest bestsellers to a variety of unique merchandise. We are extremely excited to be able to feature them through our ShopTab service on Facebook and here on our blog today.

Q: Penguin Books has been around for quite some time and is internationally well-known today. How did Penguin Books come about?

In 1935 Allen Lane, then a director of The Bodley Head, found himself on a platform at Exeter station searching its bookstall for something to read on his journey back to London, but discovered only popular magazines and reprints of Victorian novels. Appalled by the selection on offer, Lane decided that good quality contemporary fiction should be made available at an attractive price and sold not just in traditional bookshops, but also in railway stations, tobacconists and chain stores. The first Penguin paperbacks appeared in the summer of 1935 and cost just sixpence, the same price as a packet of cigarettes.

There are so many online shopping cart options for today’s entrepreneurs and business owners to choose from. Each week ShopTab features one online shopping cart, interviewing the featured cart’s developer to provide an opportunity to learn about why their cart may be right for your business.

Most recently, ShopTab was able to speak with Vince Pichpongsa, a director of Vevo Systems Co., Ltd based in Bangkok, Thailand. Pichpongsa has been involved in software development and IT business for more than 10 years. His recent works have helped contributed to the development of VevoCart, the main product of Vevo Systems Co., Ltd that was first launched in 2006.

VevoCart is a complete ecommerce solution with intuitive and user-friendly interface. The software is written in C# with ASP.NET 2.0 and 3.5. It is easy to use and understand by the merchants. Its software architecture is designed to be easily customized and understood by even the most novice of internet users. (more…)

There are so many online shopping cart options for today’s entrepreneurs and business owners to choose from. Each week ShopTab features one online shopping cart, interviewing the featured cart’s developer to provide an opportunity to learn about why their cart may be right for your business.

ShopTab recently had the priviledge to interview Jamie Whitney of Squirrelcart. Squirrelcart was launched in 2002 as a self proprietorship. Whitney functions as the owner, developer, support tech, sales manger, marketing manager, and janitor all in one. He has developed a cart that is very customizable and easy to use. Squirrelcart will even generate the HTML for all of your store’s pages based on the built in templates provided or allow you to fully design the layout with HTML yourself. The (more…)

With so many online shopping cart options, finding what is best for your business can be overwhelming. Each week ShopTab (www.shoptab.net) features one online shopping cart, interviewing the featured cart’s developer to provide an opportunity to learn about why their cart may be right for your business.

This week ShopTab had a chance to talk with Massimo Arrigoni co-founder and CEO of Early Impact, the software developing company that produces quality e-commerce software used to build and manage Internet storefronts.

Early Impact creates software that blends seamlessly with existing Web sites and is used by thousands of online stores all over the world in virtually any industry. One of its very successful shopping carts, ProductCart, is sold both directly to businesses and through a network of Web designers and developers. ProductCart is a sophisticated, secure (officially PA-DSS validated), user-friendly shopping cart program used all over the world to build and manage professional Internet storefronts.

ProductCart is integrates with Google Checkout, all PayPal payment systems, dozens of other payment gateways, UPS, FedEx, USPS, CanadaPost, QuickBooks, Stone Edge, POS systems, and more. Fully customizable, it has been adopted as the solution of choice for building personalized ecommerce solutions by hundreds of Web designers and developers. (more…)